This is an article we found in the July
issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine
1869.
It tells the story of the new
factory at Elgin Illinois and adds some other interesting
information. I have placed the pictures in place where they appeared
in the text, but I made them a link so you don't have to wait for
them to load if you are interested in the text only.

"WHAT o'clock is it?" asked Emanuel Swedenborg, upon his
deathbed. Being told, he answered, "It is well; I thank you;
may God bless you;" and the pure spirit of the venerable
teacher gently passed away. "What o'clock is it?" ask little
children, as they blow off the feathered seed-vessels of the
dandelion, and tell the hour by the number that remain upon
the stalk.

Civilized man every where, from the cradle to the grave,
repeats this question oftener than any other. Were all
things at rest it could never be answered. Motion alone
enables us to measure time. Motion is best exemplified in
the heavenly bodies, particularly the sun. Yet man, "the
tool-making animal," never asks, "What o'sun?" but simply
"What o'clock?" He has brought artificial timekeepers to
such perfection that they are the most wonderful of his
mechanical achievements, the things most alive and human in
the entire range of his handiwork. Primitive man had little
need of clocks or watches. The opening and closing of
flowers; the voices of birds, beasts, and insects; the
position of sun, moon, and stars, told the passage of time
with accuracy enough for his simple life. Mariners, hunters,
shepherds, and all other men much alone with nature, still
keep familiar with her habits and her moods. The Indian
says, "Four moons have passed," or "It was ten sleeps ago;"
and the farmer, "It was between day and sunrise," or "It was
half an hour by sun."

Job's expression, "As a servant earnestly desireth the
shadow," points to the earliest artificial timekeeper. The
sundial (dialis, daily) originated, nobody knows when, with
some of the Eastern nations. Isaiah wrote, eight hundred
years before Christ, "I will bring back the shadow of the
degrees which is gone down in the sundial of Ahaz ten
degrees backward." A dial, usually standing upon a stone
post on a sunny knoll, is still preserved as a relic of the
past in almost every English country churchyard. Around it
on Sunday mornings, an hour or two before service, were wont
to gather the rustics, discussing crops, the weather, and
politics, while matrons gossiped soberly, and children
tumbled in leapfrog over mossy tombstones, or played ball
against the tower, till the parson's tinkling bell summoned
all to worship.

In clear weather the dial showed the hour by day, as the
stars did by night; but when clouds came something more was
needed. Hence the East originated the "Clepsydra" (the "
Water Stealer"), a transparent, graduated vase filled with
liquid, which slowly trickled or stole away through a little
aperture in the bottom. The receding height marked the
passage of the hours. The clepsydra was used in ancient
China, and in Egypt under the Ptolemies. Caster found it
among the native Britons. Pompeii introduced it into Roman
courts " to prevent babbling." One of Martial's epigrams
counseled a dull declaimer, who was constantly quaffing from
a glass of water during his endless harangue, to relieve
both himself and his audience by drinking from the clepsydra
instead. The Clepsydra

In the Colony of Massachusetts Bay two centuries ago an
hour-glass stood before the Puritan preacher, and was turned
by a tithing-man when he began his sermon. lf he stopped
long before the sand ran out, his bearers were dissatisfied;
if he continued long after, they grew impatient. Hour
Glass

The hour-glass is only a modification of the clepsydra.
It substitutes fine sand for water, as something which will
neither freeze nor evaporate, and which, when the glass is
full, will run little faster than when it is nearly. empty.
It was known before the Christian era, and has been used by
nearly all nations. It was so common among our ancestors a
hundred years ago that the illustration which we copy from
the New England Primer of 1777 was drawn from one of the
most familiar objects in their daily life.

In dry, equable Eastern climates the clepsydra long
maintained its supremacy, and it is used in India even to
this day. It was exceedingly inaccurate, but improvements
were constantly added. Sometimes water flowed in tears from
the eyes of automata, and sometimes a floating statue rising
and falling with the liquid pointed to the passing hours
engraved upon an upright scale. Next, a little wheel was
introduced, on which the water fell drop by drop, turning
it, and thus communicating motion to hands upon a dial. In
time machinery was inserted to tell not only the hours of
the day, but the age of the moon, and the motions of other
heavenly bodies; and finally the clepsydra grew into an
ingenious and complicated waterclock, A thousand years ago a
Persian caliph, the Haroun-al-Raschid of the Arabian Nights,
sent one to the Emperor Charlemagne which had a striking
apparatus. When the twelve hours were completed twelve doors
opened in its face; and from each rode an automaton
horseman, who waited till the striking was over, and then
rode back again, closing the door after him.

"Clock" originally signified "bell, " and the French
cloche still retains that meaning. The invention is claimed
for many different peoples and eras, from the Chinese two
thousand years before Christ down to the Germans of eight
centuries ago. The first general use of clocks was in
monasteries, during the eleventh century. Before their
appearance the sacristan sat up to watch the stars that he
might waken the monks at the hours of prayer. The common
people attributed their origin to the devil; and had any
body outside of the religious orders incurred